Car on Fire
by Cloud Clavell
Summary: John and Rodney love to race remote-controlled cars, so what happens when they knock it up a notch? Surely they can't do too much damage in an ancient hi-tech city full of military personnel... right?
1. Chapter 1

**The famous car-on-fire incident as referenced in my fic **_**Worship!**_

**THE PLOT**

"Rodney?"

Doctor Rodney McKay flinched at the sound of Zelenka's voice and turned to face him with a face that was so patently guilty that for a moment the Czech wondered if he was playing a joke.

"Rodney, what are you doing in my lab?"

"Well, ah, there was a, a thing."

"A thing?" Zelenka repeated, more and more confused.

"Yeah, I left a thing behind and I, I came back to get it."

"Well, I haven't seen anything belonging to you lying about. What did it look like?"

Rodney waved one hand dismissively. The other was tucked behind his back. "You know what, never mind, it wasn't an important thing, I probably left it in my room anyway. I'll go look for it there."

"Rodney," Zelenka said sternly. "What's in your hand?"

"Nothing." Rodney waved his empty hand in front of Zelenka's face, almost knocking off his glasses.

"Your _other _hand, Rodney."

The look on his face was pure 'busted.' "Yes, ok, so I'm borrowing your new battery-thing, but I'll give it back!"

"It's not a battery, it's a miniaturized naqahdah generator, and you weren't borrowing it, you were stealing it."

"I was gonna give it back!"

Zelenka rolled his eyes. Trust McKay to sound indignant about being caught stealing. "What did you want it for, anyway?"

"Oh. No reason."

"_Rodney_…"

"Ok, you remember how Sheppard beat me last time we raced?"

"Doesn't he beat you every time?"

"_No_! Well, maybe."

Zelenka did remember something vaguely like that. "You want my generator to make your remote-controlled car run faster?"

"No," McKay announced triumphantly, "I want it to win the pot."

"The pot?" This conversation was just making less and less sense.

"Yeah. I said Sheppard's car was better, he said I should just change mine… Long story short, we agreed that each of us would go off and upgrade our cars, and race them again. Ronon went and spread it around, and now everyone is placing bets. The winner of the race gets half of the money."

"So you want my generator to make your car run faster."

"Well… I guess."

"How much money do you stand to win?"

"A lot of people have gotten in. I mean, there's not a lot to go out and buy in the Pegasus galaxy. Couple of hundred at least."

"I want half."

"WHAT?"

Zelenka grinned. "I'll loan you my generator, but if your car wins, I want half."

"But that means I only get a quarter!"

"You'll get to gloat. We all know how much you like that."

"True," McKay mumbled. "Alright. But you have to help me attach it to my car."

Doubts suddenly rose up and struck Zelenka around the face. "I should probably warn you, it is a little unstable–"

"I don't care, it just has to run long enough to beat Sheppard."

"You don't think that's a short-sighted attitude?"

"The attitude of a champion, my friend. The attitude of a champion."


	2. Chapter 2

**So Rodney now has a naqahdah-powered, unstable remote controlled-car. _What_ could possibly go wrong?**

**THE RACE**

Ronon was the only one waiting the corridor where Sheppard and McKay usually raced.

"Hey, where's Sheppard?" Rodney demanded, trailed by Zelenka.

"Change of plans," Ronon said briefly. "Come on."

"Well, where are we going? Ronon? Ronon, where are we going?" Rodney was jogging to keep up with the Satedan. Zelenka leaned in and said softly,

"Rodney, he isn't going to tell you."

"If he doesn't tell me, I'm not coming." Rodney stopped abruptly and crossed his arms stubbornly.

When he looked up, Ronon was looming over him. "You really think I can't _make _you come with me?"

"Ronon," Zelenka said politely. "Where are we going?"

Ronon sighed. "There were too many people to fit in the usual corridor. Sheppard found a new one that can hold everybody."

"Too many people?" Rodney squawked, following him again. He had realised the pot had grown, but he hadn't realised people would actually show up to see the race itself. "How many people _are _there?"

* * *

"Everyone on base is here," Rodney said to Sheppard, shocked.

Sheppard shrugged. "Not everyone."

"Well, _most_ of the people on base are here!"

"But not everyone. Look at it this way, if you win you can finish paying off your sister's car payments. _When_ I win, I'm going to buy a Mustang."

"Oh, dream on!" Rodney scoffed. "You can think about that Mustang when you're watching my car leave yours in the dust."

"Big words, little man. Put your motor where your mouth is."

Lorne had volunteered to umpire the race. He watched carefully as Sheppard and McKay placed their cars on the ground, making sure that they were both exactly perpendicular to a line he had chalked in. The course was simple: down the hall, around a soup can serving as a marker and back to the line. The first one over it won.

"Alright," Lorne announced. "I want a nice clean race. No pushing, shoving, biting,tickling, hair-pulling or interference of any kind with either driver. This is purely about whose car is best."

"You wanted to be in sports growing up, didn't you?" Sheppard asked drily.

"On your marks…" Sheppard and McKay's fingers tensed on their remotes. "Get set…" The onlookers leaned forwards, holding their breath… "GO!"

Sheppard had better reflexes: his car took off a second before Rodney's did. McKay desperately pushed forwards on the joystick, and with a scream of rubber, his car sped up, leaving little black-tyre tracks behind it.

Sheppard had gotten the engineers to rig up some little miniature jet engine, Rodney knew, but Zelenka's naquahdah battery put it to shame. Barely halfway down the corridor, Rodney was pulling ahead sharply. Sheppard growled and leaned forwards, as if that would make his car go faster.

Rodney's car tilted slightly, taking the turn around the can. Sheppard pressed a button Rodney hadn't seen before on his remote, and two tiny little flames shot from the back of his car, lending it a burst of speed.

"Is that an afterburner?" Rodney gasped.

"Oh yeah," Sheppard grinned smugly. He had reason to smile: his car caught up with Rodney's right as it made the turn, took the inside track and bumped McKay's car aside, sending it swerving out of control.

"Hey! Lorne, that was interference!" McKay squawked.

"Sorry, Doc. It wasn't interference with the driver." Lorne shrugged. "Not against the rules."

McKay groaned to himself as he twisted the joystick, trying to get his car back on track. It had been going so fast that when he tried to turn it, it tilted, rolled and… burst into flames.

"Rodney, your car's on fire!" Sheppard yelled.

"I noticed, thanks." Rodney hit the brakes on his control, intending to stop the car so that someone could douse it with a fire extinguisher.

It didn't stop.

"The battery is still running," he moaned, watching his out-of-control, flaming car zig-zag back down the corridor towards Sheppard, Lorne, Ronon and himself. The onlookers were scattering, cramming themselves into rooms and corridors to avoid it. "It isn't going to stop!"

"Oh shit." Sheppard's face was pale. "It's catching me up…"

"You're worried about that stupid race still?" Rodney demanded, backing up slowly.

"I'm worried because my engine is loaded with jet fuel!"

Sheppard and McKay traded looks with one another, then broke and ran. Lorne and Ronon were already ahead of them, arms swinging and legs pumping as the cars chased them down the corridor. "Dump the remotes!" Lorne yelled over his shoulder.

Sheppard felt the heat against his back, and risked a quick glance, in time to see his car catch fire too. "IT'S GONNA BLOW!"

Ronon and Lorne swung around a corner and took cover. Sheppard tackled McKay, knocking him behind the wall just as Sheppard's car exploded. McKay's car drove through the fiery cloud like a little Transformer Angel of Death. Ronon pulled his gun, took aim, and began pumping rounds into the wall. Quick as he was, he only had time to squeeze the trigger twice before the car hit the wall at full speed.

Or rather, flew through the hole where the wall _had been_ at full speed. Rodney, kneeling on the ground, watched his car hurtle towards the water below and sighed in relief. If that thing had hit the wall, all four men would be dead.

With his heartbeat no longer pounding in his ears, he could hear Atlantis' sirens wailing. Glancing out at the corridor, he took note of the tyre-marks, scorch marks and the large smoking hole in the wall. Right on cue, the smoke-detector system installed in the ceiling went off, covering them all in pink foam that muffled the last of the flames shooting from Sheppard's car and clung to Ronon's dreadlocks.

"We're in trouble," Rodney said glumly.

"You know, technically," Sheppard announced, sitting up, "My car crossed the line first."

* * *

"So how much did you win?" Ronon asked, straightening from his slouched position against the wall as Sheppard and McKay left Woolsey's office. He had come out of the entire affair pretty well, being praised for his 'quick thinking'.

"None. Woolsey is confiscating the winnings to pay for the damage," Sheppard said glumly.

"I heard it was quite a race," Teyla said, hoisting Torren onto one hip so that she could walk with them.

"It'll go down in history," Sheppard agreed. "And you know the most important thing?"

"What is that?" Teyla asked obligingly, sure that it would be something ridiculous.

"I got to see Ronon with pink hair. Ow!"

**And that, my children, is the legendary Car on Fire incident. **


End file.
